


Write Our Own Ending

by Nevanna



Category: Jekyll (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1242973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first sixth months of the rest of Claire's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Write Our Own Ending

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on 2/11/11. **Warning** for non-graphic sexual references and spoilers for the entire series.

****

1.

****

Claire is used to getting what she wants, and so when she first spoke of selling the house and moving somewhere else, two nights after their release from the Klein and Utterson Institute, she was surprised at Tom’s resolve when he said, “No.”

“You don’t think that it would be a good idea to start over?” she protested.

“It _is_ over. You need to believe that.”

“You seem awfully sure that’s true.” She _wanted_ to believe it, so very badly. She still does. “Would you stake your life on it? How about mine? The boys’?” 

“If they really wanted to track us, they could track us anywhere, couldn’t they?” His voice was irritatingly calm and rational. “You saw what they’re capable of.” 

She remembered the soldiers and stasis boxes, the shambling clones in the basement, the woman who haunted its corridors and whispered unbelievable truths.

“This is our home,” Tom continued. “Running away will cause more problems than it’ll solve. Besides, you’re the one who always complained about what a pain in the arse it is to move.”

He didn’t need to remind her of that, at least. Claire relocated a half-dozen times throughout her twenties, and after they were fully settled in their beautiful new house, after the movers had broken half her mother’s best china and the legs of one of the chairs, she swore that it would be the last time. “I suppose you’re right about that.”

Her husband held out an imaginary tape recorder. “Care to say that again, for the record?”

“Why, Dr. Jackman, did you just make a joke?”

He sighed. “Stranger things have happened.”

Later, she sent a discreet email to Miranda Callendar. She couldn’t let another day go by without knowing how much of the Institute’s data remained, and whether it could be destroyed. _I will pay anything,_ she added, because she very nearly did.

A month after that, when no black vans have trailed them, when the two of them have gone back to quarreling about bills and who’s let them run out of laundry soap again, she’s begun to breathe just a little more easily.

****

2.

****

They’re on their way to her mother’s seventieth birthday party, and Claire stares out the window at the passing trees and houses and doesn’t think about all the telephone calls she’s dodged over the past two months, until she couldn’t dodge them anymore. Even then, what was she supposed to say? _Yes, Mother, we’re doing well; and by the way, when you and Dad adopted me – which you could have told me about – did you know that I was grown in a laboratory?_ Was she supposed to ring her friends and ask, _If Dr. Jekyll and I hadn’t hit it off, would you have tried to set me up with the Phantom of the Opera instead?_

Well, of course not. They were meant to hit it off, after all. She’d been created, literally _created_ , for the man she married. Had they known that? Had her family known that she’d been handed to them for safekeeping until she was grown and ready to play her part in a story that was scripted over a century before?

When her father raises his glass and calls everybody’s attention for a toast, she bites back the questions and the jokes, for now. She reminds herself that it’s way past time to tear up the script and toss it in the fire, and if she still dreams of shadowy, sunless hallways, of fog and hoof-beats and the devil at her back, what of it?

****

3.

****

There were some things that they needed to relearn, after their lives imploded, and too much time passes before they find solace in the things that they’ve never forgotten: the way that their bodies fit together under the sheets, the spot on Tom’s neck where he likes her tongue, the rising tempo of her breath. 

Sometimes, when she sees that familiar smirk curl one corner of his mouth, she freezes in his arms. Sometimes, she kisses him all the more hungrily, and doesn’t think about why.

At first, she kept her eyes on his, wondering if they would change. They never have. Hyde only visits in the dreams that Tom never, ever talks about. He’s trying to shield her from the worst, the way he always did before. Even three months afterward, she still wakes on some nights to see him standing at the window, his back to her, staring into the darkness.

****

4.

****

Harry crouches on a chair in the kitchen. His crayons scattered across the surface of the table. “You little Michelangelo,” Claire murmurs, tousling his hair. “I’d better not find those crayons still scattered about at dinnertime.”

“What’s a Michelangelo?”

“A very famous man who made beautiful pictures.” She leans down. “Can you show Mummy what you’re working on?” His paper is covered with yellow blobs adorned with golden manes and tails.

“They’re lions, like at the zoo.”

Claire’s shoulders tense. “Lovely,” she manages.

“They were right next to me, Mummy, but I wasn’t scared. I knew that Daddy would fight them for us.”

“The bad men put never put you in the lions’ cage, sweetheart,” she reminds him.

“Not the whole time,” he agrees. “It was Eddie, at first.”

She could convince herself that his imagination was working on overdrive, or that hers is. She could rationalize the way that they speak in unison sometimes or seem to see through each other’s eyes. She could tell herself again that her wonderful boys are healthy, and clever, and resilient as anything, and that twins are just a bit odd sometimes, that’s all.

Will she always see the monsters around every corner, now that she knows that some of them are real?

****

5.

****

Minutes after she’s set down her shopping bags to sip her latte by the window, a shadow falls over her café table. She doesn’t look up until a not-quite-familiar female voice says, “Mrs. Jackman? I thought that was you.”

Claire looks up from her magazine. Katherine Reimer is standing over her with a paper cup of tea in hand; she’s wearing her uniform and name-tags with a very stylish coat overtop, and her smooth auburn hair is up in a twist. “I just left my shift,” she explains.

“Oh, is that it? I thought you just dressed up like that for a laugh.” Claire pauses. “Don't answer that.”

Katherine doesn’t quite smile. “How are you? And…” She glances for a split second at the tiled floor. “And your family?”

“As well as can be expected, thank you very much.”

“Everything getting back to normal, then?” Claire doesn’t answer. “I’ve been trying my best, and…” For the first time, Katherine’s calm, clipped voice falters.

“Ms. Reimer, if my husband is telling the truth, you helped him when he needed it – helped all of us – and I’m grateful for that. But if you think we’re going to sit and have coffee and gossip like girlfriends, I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

“ _If_ he’s telling the truth?” Katherine echoes. “After everything you’ve been through, do you really think that little of him?” This time, she doesn’t wait for a reply. “If you have no idea how much he treasured you, how much he wanted to you to be safe, then there’s nothing that I can do to convince you.”

“So the two of you talked about me, did you?”

“Are you more worried about defending your territory,” Katherine fires back, “or angry that you were kept in the dark?”

“Presumptuous, aren’t we?”

“I’ve got a degree in psychology, I’ll have you know.” Katherine gives her a brisk nod. “Have a good day, Mrs. Jackman.”

This woman does not back down, Claire thinks to herself. Under different circumstances, she would have respected that. Under different circumstances, perhaps they would have discovered that they had more than just this one thing in common, and might even have been friends. Maybe that’s why she does what she does next, or maybe she just hates giving somebody else the last word. “Katherine, wait.”

****

6.

****

Claire is used to getting what she wants, sometimes even before she knows what that is. She bagged a handsome, successful man, and never, ever let him forget how lucky he was that she, who could have anybody she chose, had chosen him. Now, of course, she knows that it wasn’t just luck, but that doesn’t change the truth: that she found what she didn’t realize she was looking for.

She’s fixing her hair in the bedroom mirror when he appears behind her, white as a sheet, with one sleeve torn. “What’s wrong?” she asks, although she already fears that she knows the answer.

“She’s found us.” Tom brushes past her. “Or I found her, without knowing it. I was daft; I should have worked it out ahead of time.” He’s opening and shutting drawers, tossing clothes out onto the bed. “I ran. I’m afraid that we’re going to be doing a fair amount of that, after all.”

There’s no need to ask who _she_ is. The last time Claire saw Ms. Utterson, the bitch had given the order to shoot the man who was and wasn’t her husband, had left her children to suffocate slowly. Now, she runs for the door and shouts their names. “If she comes near the boys, I’ll kill her.” Six months ago, she wouldn’t have recognized that voice as hers, but now she knows it all too well.

Tom takes her hands in his. “Claire, I promised myself that I’d do whatever I could to protect you. Hyde may be gone, but that hasn’t changed.”

“Yes, it has.” Hyde is love, and love is madness, and the madness is still here now that he’s gone, and what they have left will have to be enough. “No more secrets this time. No more sneaking around, no more trying to protect me. We’re in it together now.”


End file.
